RE: GROSS MISCONDUCT ON THE PART OF THE FEDERAL HIGH COURT JUDGE IN THE CASE OF FRN VS JAMES IBORI & ANOR.

RE: GROSS MISCONDUCT ON THE PART OF THE FEDERAL HIGH COURT JUDGE IN THE CASE OF FRN VS JAMES IBORI & ANOR. – A REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK

Please recall that the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) directed a petition dated 19 October, 2009 (Copy hereunder pasted) to your Lordship on the above referred subject matter. We were gladdened by your immediate attendance to the said petition by promptly referring it on the same day the petition got to your Lordship’s office to the trial judge in the case under reference, Mr Justice Awokulehin asking for His Lordship’s reaction to it within two weeks to the date the letter was received by him. We were highly delighted and elated when we received a copy of your correspondence to His Lordship trial judge as the initiator of the petition in question.

We were equally happy and expressed it when His Lordship the trial judge stepped down his ruling on the case earlier slated for November 6 saying he preferred ‘to err on the side of caution’, ostensibly due to the moral issues raised by our petition leading to your Lordship seeking Justice Awokulehin’s reaction to the issues raised against him in it. Your Lordship sent the said letter to His Lordship Justice Mercel Awokulehin on 21 st of October which makes the two-week period given to the trial judge to respond to the petition lapsed on or about the 4 th of November.

Your Lordship, our Coalition has waited patiently for an update on the situation of your intervention on the issue but has not got any either from your Lordship or any other quarters since the expiration of the ultimatum given His Lordship Awokulehin to react to the issue. This silence from your office on whether or not His Lordship has responded to your correspondence to him has become worrisome to us.

Several questions have been raised by members of the Nigerian public on whether your Lordship has consigned the issue into waste bin or swept it under the carpet. Some supporters and servants of Mr James Ibori the chief beneficiary of the anomalies we raised in our petition to your Lordship, especially his Media Assistant, Mr Tony Eluemunor have been mocking us by derisively asking us about the outcome of our faith in your Lordship’s ability to do justice by addressing our concerns expressed in our petition to you. They are also boasting that His Lordship Awokulehin would deliver the ruling in favour of Mr James Ibori come Monday, 23 rd of November whether anyone likes it or not. Could they have been assured of this fact in advance? We hereby request for your Lordship’s findings and other actions taken on the matter.

Your Lordship, we are not against His Lordship Justice Awokulehin delivering the ruling on the set day and in whichever way, but unless all the moral issues raised against His Lordship as trial judge in this case is cleared and the Nigerian populace are adequately informed upon which grounds the judge is cleared of the allegations leveled against him, such ruling would be lacking in legitimacy, credibility, integrity and acceptability. It may also cast a pall on the glowing record of excellent performance you have maintained till these periods when you are retiring. Your Lordship, we would prefer you retire in dignity with untainted records than to allow some questionable characters run your Lordship into a moral mud that will add a ‘but’ in the enviable unblemished records, free of sleaze that you have managed to maintain throughout your earlier days in public service, as a judge in a corruption-ridden society like Nigeria.

It is for this reason that we hereby urge you, in the name of all that is good, not to allow Mr Justice Awokulehin deliver a ruling that would cast aspersions on the neutrality of the bench in this case, and thereby erode people’s confidence in the judiciary as an arm of government that is expected to be the last sanctuary of hope for the oppressed.

We are earnestly expectant of your decisive intervention in this matter before it becomes a national embarrassment.

The President and Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces
The President of the Senate
The Honourable Speaker, House of Representatives
The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation
The Chairman, National Judicial Commission
The President, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)